take more social initiative and become better about reciprocating social invitations

This year I’m going to send her one.

that I’ve simply given up. I went to college in a city where I thought I knew people, to avoid a rocky transition or at least to have a safety net, knowing that I don’t deal with change well, and it fucking happened anyway. No one has remained consistent in my life since I was a toddler. There’s no one left on this planet that I can trust. Even the ones who have drawn me out, ended up closing the door in the end. And I wanted so badly to believe them. The only way I can bring consistency into my life is, aparently, by not having people in it. If there was any other way then it would have shown itself by now.

I returned a call from a old friend who knew me from a time when things were going better. It took me three days to call back. We had a really good conversation. The only harsh judgment I experienced was my own self-criticism while I debated whether to call back.

Withdrawal from others who care about you is a dumb thing to do, especially when done only to keep your self-image from being buffeted. And it may not even happen.

There’s a student in my painting class this quarter who I’ve had in a few other classes before, who, yesterday, was trying to get a studio locker, but they have all been filled. There were a few other available lockers, but they were the really tall and narrow type, and those don’t work for storing square canvases or huge toolboxes full of wet paints. So since I have the same one-square-meter locker that I’ve always had, and it has a lot of space inside that I’m not using this fall, I offered to share it with him. And he accepted.

She recognized me first. We had an art theory class together last spring, and this fall we are in the same psychology class. I took the initiative of asking her name and shaking hands. I’m normally very shy about asking people their names, but I didn’t think I’d ever meet someone here with the same two majors as me. That’s awesome.

I think I’m hanging out with all the wrong people.

Could be wrong, but when no one provides any feedback, what else is there to think?

I will initiate things, and people will say it’s cool, but then nobody ever comes. I gave up trying a long time ago. There are very few worse feelings in the world than having nobody show up. Especially when you’re shy to begin with.

So if someone can clue me in on what I’m doing wrong, I’ll give it another try.

(1) Email, snail mail, phone: respond promptly to all.
(2) Don’t wait for the other person to resume contact. Make a list of people to keep up with regularly,
(3) Initiate at least 10 group social activities in the remaining year.
(4) Invite people over for casual socializing at least 4 times in the remaining year. (I seem to do all my socializing outside my apartment. It’s not always in a “visitor-ready” state!)
(5) Clean up a little each day so messiness is not a deterrent to having people over.
(6) Ask someone at work out to lunch at least once a week.

Me: “Goddamnit, I hate when the TSA employee interrogates you after you’ve gone through the gate. She was cute, though.”

Stranger behind me: “You idiot! She was flirting with you!”

let’s just say im horrible at taking care of your average relationship courtesies